Author: Karen J. Alter

These positions are more generally focused on global governance, but a case can be made for focusing on the role of international law and international legal institutions within this project.

Three post-doc positions on legitimacy in global governance
The research program “Legitimacy in Global Governance” (LegGov) invites applications for three two-year post-doctoral appointments. The positions will be placed in Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Lund (Sweden), with a planned starting date of January 1, 2017.
LegGov is a six-year collaboration (2016-2021) among researchers from the Departments of Political Science at Lund and Stockholm Universities, and the School of Global Studies at the University of Gothenburg. The program is funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond with Professor Jonas Tallberg as lead coordinator and Professors Karin Bäckstrand and Jan Aart Scholte as co-coordinators.
For more information about the research program and the three positions, see http://www.statsvet.su.se/leggov. Application deadline: June 30, 2016.

Applications are due April 1 for the ICourts and PluricourtsPhD Summer School on International law: Courts and Contexts. This week-long intensive training focuses on professional development, including explaining your dissertation project in a concise yet general way, developing and defending your methodological approach, framing your project to interest diverse audiences, reflecting on your writing and outreach strategies, and building a professional CV.

Morning sessions feature presentations from senior faculty member who reflect on their research strategies, methods and trajectories. Afternoons include working sessions focused on your dissertation project. The Summer School takes place in lovely Copenhagen, and includes sight seeing and networking. It is a blast, although exhausting (if only because the sun sets very late in the summer!)

Learn more, including how to apply, here. The course is offered free of charge but the participants carry out expenses relating to travel and accommodation. iCourts will offer up to 5 travel scholarships. Space is limited, and admission is competitive.

The peer-reviewed journal Law and Contemporary Problems has just published a 314-page special issue edited by Karen Alter, Laurence Helfer and Mikael Rask Madsen. This long-term project, launched at iCourts and involving numerous staff and close collaborators of the Centre, realizes iCourts’ ambition to build theory by comparing the real-world experiences of different international courts (ICs).

The special issue offers the first systematic empirical exploration of the authority of the ten most active ICs. Each article, authored by leading scholars in law, political science and sociology, analyzes how IC authority varies over time, by issue area, and within and across member countries. The contributors apply the framework developed by the co-editors in the introductory article, “How Context Shapes the Authority of International Courts.” The key question addressed in the special issue is how to explain the wide variation in the de facto authority of ICs. Specifically, which contextual factors lead some ICs to become active and prominent judicial bodies that cast a rule-of-law shadow beyond the courtroom, while others remain moribund or legally and politically sidelined?

A number of authors explain how international judges have influenced the environment in which they operate. But the symposium collectively suggests that contextual factors beyond the control of judges may be equally if not more influential, limiting the ability international judges to transform de jure into de facto legal authority.

The articles focus on well known ICs (CJEU, ECtHR, ICC, WTO, ICJ, ICTY) and less well known regional courts in Latin American and Africa (OHADA, EACJ, IACtHR, CCJ.) A book version, to be published by Oxford University press, will include commentaries and additional chapters focusing on the Andean Tribunal, the SADC, and ECOWAS courts.

iCourts is a Centre of Excellence funded by the Danish National Research
Foundation. Its research focus is on the ever-growing role of international courts, their place in a globalizing legal order and their impact on politics and society at large.

iCourts particularly welcomes research projects that deal with:

Comparative analysis of the embeddedness of international courts in different political and social systems, considering the perceived legitimacy and/or the legal and political conflicts faced by international courts in different national systems;

Comparative analysis of the impact of regional international courts on regional integration processes, especially in less explored settings in Africa and Latin America;

The interaction between regional courts with jurisdiction over either human rights, or economic matters in settings with overlapping regional and international legal regimes;

The interaction between regional courts and the highest courts of contracting parties and/or global courts such as the ICJ, ICC, and WTO Appellate Body;

The transformations of global governance and the role that international courts play in constitutionalizing legal regimes, examined via an empirical and/or theoretical analysis of the organization of public authority in pluralist/federal/hierarchical/non-hierarchical settings;

Students must have a masters degree in hand before beginning the program. Closing date for applications is 28 January 2016. Details on the requirements and application process are available here.

Postdoctoral interdisciplinary fellowships to study international courtsFaculty of Law, University of Copenhagen

The iCourts (the Center of Excellence for International Courts) at the University of Copenhagen is seeking applications for two or three positions as postdoctoral researcher/ The positions are available from 1st February 2016, and for duration of two (2) years. Start date is negotiable under special circumstances. See the employment call to learn more.

About iCourts

iCourts is a Center of Excellence funded by the Danish National Research Foundation. Its research focus is on the ever-growing role of international courts, their place in a globalizing legal order and their impact on politics and society at large. To understand these crucial and contemporary interplays of law, politics and society, iCourts has launched a set of integrated interdisciplinary research projects on the causes and consequences of the proliferation of international courts. In particular, the research agenda of iCourts explores the processes of institutionalization, autonomization and legitimation of international courts. By bringing together a transnational group of top scholars with a background in law and the social sciences, iCourts encourages interdisciplinary exchanges, and promotes empirical research of new and well-established international courts.

Read more about iCourts here. Applicants are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the faculty’s research areas and education programmes. Special consideration will be given to the applicant’s ability to help strengthen and add to the Faculty’s research and education programmes.

The postdoc projects:

For this call, iCourts particularly welcomes research projects that deal with:

Comparative analysis of the embeddedness of international courts in different political and social systems, considering the perceived legitimacy and/or the legal and political conflicts faced by international courts in different national systems;

Comparative analysis of the impact of regional international courts on regional integration processes, especially in less explored settings in Africa and Latin America;

The interaction between regional courts with jurisdiction over either human rights, or economic matters in settings with overlapping regional and international legal regimes;

The interaction between regional courts and the highest courts of contracting parties and/or global courts such as the ICJ, ICC, and WTO Appellate Body;

The transformations of global governance and the role that international courts play in constitutionalizing legal regimes, examined via an empirical and/or theoretical analysis of the organization of public authority in pluralist/federal/heterarchical/non-hierarchical settings.

The Centre of Excellence for International Courts (iCourts) and PluriCourts – Centre for the Study of the Legitimate Roles of the Judiciary in the Global Order is hosting a high-level summer school for PhD students working on international law and with a special interest in interdisciplinary studies of international law and its social and political context. The program is designed for students and scholars who are writing up a PhD thesis that involves an interdisciplinary study of one or more international courts. Senior faculty work with students to develop their projects, and provide insights from their own experience of becoming a scholar of international courts.